March 14 quickie video

What advantages are there to researching Mining etc.?  Do you get increased production, or is it the case that it only matters what items you can research that require the resource to make?

It would be REALLY nice if we could set the speed of auto resolve in the settings.  like perhaps increments of 25%. from 200% speed to 25% speed. i like to sit back and watch it, but its over so fast i really can't tell what happened.

Note: i haven't played in the last update or 2. so if its in there now, disregard this.

It might be renamed to Smelting.

Crap, I just drooled on my keyboard!  Looking forward to all of the changes in tactical and factions!   Love that you can build on stuff right away.

Brad- I was just thinking after reading your other post on making swords, how about random tech tree/ random starting weapons.

You don't know what your first group of warriors weapons are going to be like until you settle your first city. Once you do you find out what your basic starting weapons are, say I get daggers this game and the next spears (you could run the chance of starting with say +1 dagger or a short sword). Other possibilities are you could start out with training (though you won't get a better starting weapon).

In all the games you get access to all weapons axes, swords, spears, etc... though you might not get to access the best ones down the tree. You could explore the world to unlock them, or kill off your enemies to get them or tough luck you don't get them in certain games. You can't always rely on your favorite weapons.

The same would go for spell books, certain books contain x spells, some games you get the whole book, others well you might be missing a spell or 2. Same as above for completing the book, explore, fight or some games they are gone.

And yes you guess it for techs too...

TY Frogboy

Good changes to weapons and resources, makes things interesting. Did you get that idea from the forum because it seems framiliar.

Any changes to armor/shields to reflect the new weapon abilities?

I still do not think that this differentiate units enough. Play HOMM, or Armored princes. Units have TONS of interesting abilities. The added "chance to make second attack on miss" is really, really weak improvement, it is just slight buff of the weapon, no much game mechanics has changed. Good direction, but just a baby step.

These changes look really top notch. Can't wait to get my hands on the next beta.

I can sort of see MXM111's point. It really doesn't have to be limited to weapons, but in general modern strategy games are going towards almost every unit having an active ability as well as a few passive abilities. Heroes 6 and Kings Bounty: Armored Princess are good examples. It makes the battles more interactive and fun, instead of move, attack, move, attack, every single battle.

My suggestion would be abilities like
Hammer Smash: An attack that ignores defense, 3 turn cooldown. 
Swinging Axe: An attack that hits all adjacent enemies, 3 turn cooldown.
Speedy Sword: An attack that has +25% accuracy and boosts your initiative by 2 for one turn. 2 Turn cooldown.

These types of abilities very clearly define a certain circumstance where they are best used. Swords would be good against high dodge enemies. Axes are great against a swarm of weaker units. Hammers are good against enemies who have lots of defense. If you use hammers against a swarm of unarmored clubmen, then you are being ineffecient. Its the proper way to go about it, IMO.

Now, if you want to keep tactical battles simple then adding more activated abilities could be a problem. It also makes the AI more complex since you have to decide whether to use your activated ability or wait (assuming it has limited resources or disadvantages, otherwise it may as well be passive).  

One thing I have been talking about adding are chances to reduce enemy abilities with certain weapons.

Ex:

Axes can sever tendons, which amounts to less accuracy or maybe less strength for the rest of the battle.

Warhammers can dent armor, reducing the armor stat of an enemy for the rest of the battle, or maybe they have a chance to knock an opponent off kilter, reducing Init by 50% for one turn. 

Things like that would add alot of utility to each weapon. I have to say though, the new balances seem like a large step in the right direction.

Nice.....can't wait.

You guys are such teases

Until late game (at least in current spellbuild) where all you see is: Fog, Fog, Fog, Fog, Fog at the start of every battle. I'm happy when I can find backswing axes in current build just because of that.Hopefully there will be more defensive spells (which are more efficient...right now offense is much more mana efficient which kinda irks me). I think enchanting on the overhead map is ok to have a higher cost + the upkeep because it is "permenant". The tact cost should be at least half the current mana cost for buffing a unit temporarily - at least that's my wish.

I also notice that there is now a book of fire.

What is that crest (Kingdom_Crest_04) that Miloth has along his talents? Placeholder for what?

The changes to weapons are cool. Besides units having abilities, I hope that weapons can get quite different even between those of the same kind. I do wonder if there can be an scenario in which I may choose to create a unit using dagger (bandit like) instead of longsword for some kind of obscure tactical reason and not just because of cost/production.

Is there an ETA on next beta version?

Last I read it was March 22 "at the earliest."

Must be patient, must be patient, must be patient.

Actually the game is fun for me now, so I will just keep playing for my own amusement

What is a "Clink"?  Is that an attack that didn't do any damage?  It occurred st 3:57 fighting the mites.

Clink is when your armor totally blocks the attack from a weaker weapon. I believe that if their attack role is less than one, it has a 50% chance to Clink instead of doing one damage.

the weapon abilities sound cool. It would be nice to have some other ones through magical weapons (mirror shield that would reflect damage, life stealing, and maybe stun, daze, slow, knockback, freeze if weapon effects are resistable...) and troop traits (attack when opponents moves away, parry). As other have stated, it is what makes combat interesting. I like the changes to the tech tree too. 

Cant see anything on the link

Probably missing some addon, any help on that?

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Looks good! I must have missed in the FE-o-pedia entry that everyone in that universe is Usain Bolt, though. You may want to add that in. Or, you know, just slow down the animations a bit (especially the 'normal' speed). 

Same error here. Bummer- wanted to see this video!

I'm getting the same error.

Marketing made him take it down

It's there for me.